Cheerful Abundance

a field notebook of suburban life

One of my girls is home sick from camp this week, alternating her time between sleeping in Mummy’s bed and allowing us to bribe her with chocolate and Pepsi to take her medication. But her sister is taking one for the team, going to summer camp all by herself, and, I suspect, having a really good time being a singleton twin.

To be honest? I am having a good time, too, mostly because the one who stayed behind isn’t that sick. All this one-on-one time, all the cuddling without someone else’s needs being equally important, all the quiet conversations that are possible when there aren’t two of them, vying for my attention.

My husband and I have a running joke, not a funny joke to other people, but hilarious to us, although we were about a year into sleep deprivation when we thought it up. We like to look at people who only have one child, and arch an eyebrow at each other, and smugly whisper, “Lazy”. Lazy parents of only one child, do you have any idea how easy you have it? When you put the baby to bed, you are done at one. When you feed the baby, the other baby isn’t sitting next to you, crying herself sick of a broken heart. When you can only find one Spiderman t-shirt in the clean laundry, there is only one kid who wants to wear it. The last Popsicle isn’t a crisis of United Nations negotiating, your kid can wear any of the clean clothes they want without a battle, and when your big kid doesn’t feel well and wants to crawl on your lap and cuddle like a toddler, your other big kid isn’t standing in front of you, lip stuck out and ready to catch a bird, stomping her little foot and fuming so hard you that you can see the atomized particles of anger swirling out of her.

So today was kind of fun. We played endless games of Candyland, watched Spongebob, and snuggled up for a nap. Now I am off to see if spaghetti will tempt her fragile appetite, and after she falls asleep again, to see if her sister wants to play a little Candyland with me, too.

The good news is, after a rocky start, both my kids had a great Xmas. They loved their presents, and I think we struck the right balance of stuff – not too much, and not too little, so that they were entertained and delighted, but didn’t end up with present fatigue. I drew upon my college sorority training in “Boot and Rally” to make it through the present opening phase of the day, and to make the odd appearance in the family room, but most of my day was spent in bed with the flu. Both girls visited often, curling up next to me and playing quietly, then patting me as I drifted off, hopping down to go find a more exciting playmate.

I made the gravy, but otherwise, my husband did the entire Christmas dinner, with little help. I must say, it was fun, in a fever-haze sort of way, to watch someone else sweat the timing of it all, and the frustration of cooking sides after the turkey comes out of the oven, when those sides are supposed to be cooked at different temperatures. I need someone to invent three great holiday side dishes that all cook for 30 minutes at the same temperature, and that cover the ‘potato’, ‘veg’ and ‘bread’ categories. He did a good job, and I hope he has more appreciation for how the stress of cooking a holiday meal isn’t the turkey, but coordinating everything around the turkey.

We did have one heartbreaking moment in the day, though. One of my girls has been kicking up a fuss at PreK for a few weeks. After a semester of great reports every day, her school behaviour has changed precipitously, something we have been attributing to the pressure being put on her regarding the School Christmas Pageant, and the importance of her knowing her lines, and the songs, and the dance routines, and … oh, for crap’s sake, the whole thing is ridiculous. These kids are 3-4 years old. But she felt as pressured as if it was a Broadway production, and finally, I asked her if she wanted to do it, she said no, and I said, okay. You don’t have to do it. You practice with your class, but you don’t have to do the show. And her behaviour starting picking up again, a little bit, but I am starting to suspect that, as a means of social control at the school, someone has been threatening her with Santa to make her behave.

And not only did it not work, but it left me with a little girl who wasn’t excited about Xmas, because, as we finally learned this morning, she didn’t think Santa was coming for her. Even when we got her to the family room, where she could see her stocking, stuffed with presents, and presents surrounding it, all from Santa, she wouldn’t go over to it, and insisted it was a mistake. With tears in her eyes, she insisted that those presents could not be for her. Finally, my husband walked over with her, sat her on his lap, got her to open a present or two, and she got a little more into the spirit, but when I asked her later if she had a good Christmas, she said she did, but then followed it up with, ‘But I was naughty’. And we talked, as we have in the past with them both, about how they are always good girls, but sometimes they make poor choices, just like everyone else does, but someone at the school decided to trump that with their own message. We talk about how Santa knew what a good girl she was, and is, but missed the earlier message she got from a teacher, or a teacher’s aide.

I could just smack whoever decided to take the magic of Christmas away from my 4 year old as a means of controlling her behaviour. We never, ever suggest to our kids that Santa may or may not come for them – he is coming, and every year. Santa loves them. We never threaten or cajole them into good behaviour by holding the threat of Santa over their heads. But for one of my girls, someone did, and she took it to heart, and given that this is the first Christmas that she has truly ‘gotten it’ – Santa, presents, cookies, the whole 9 yards of the holiday – it breaks my heart that some thoughtless adult decided to put that fear into her tender little heart, and take the joy of the season away from her.

Expectation (What I thought today would be like): wake up early, do a few finishing clean-up jobs, so as to have an immaculate house on Christmas morning, start a few sides for Christmas dinner, bake gingerbread with my girls, and decorate it with crazy sprinkles and coloured icing (for Santa), wrap the last few presents for my husband, go to the 4PM Christmas eve church service for a church we are checking out, sing a few carols and dance around the kitchen with my kids, tuck them into bed early, make a cocktail for my husband, put our feet up, and enjoy the season. Maybe watch a movie, eat some good cheese, or order in some dinner.

Reality (How it actually went): I have been sick for the last few days, and my time has been divided evenly between lying in bed, and lying on the bathroom floor, faced pressed against the cool tile. The house is a mess, almost nothing is wrapped, and the idea of even thinking about food makes me have to go lie back down on the bathroom floor. Both girls started coughing last night, hard, which is how this started for me, and my husband is exhausted.

All the foolish aphorisms about how men turn into babies when they get sick, while women soldier through? Unless I accidentally married a woman, not really true in our household. I am the whiner right now, the Poor Me-er, the Oh My Fever complainer. While I have been lying in bed, feeling really sorry for myself, my husband has been powering through this family health crisis, keeping the kids fed, clothed, and entertained.He takes a lot of Advil, he complains about nothing.

But I think I am sicker than he is. You know, in case there was any score-keeping going on, I would win. I am in the fugue state of fevered dreaming, and in the past 24 hours, have entertained any number of odd beliefs: that my children know how to fly (but haven’t told me yet), that the shadow on the wall is a ghost, that the dog can read my mind, and isjudging me based on my thoughts. You know, the things that drift through your mind in the middle of the night as you wait for the Tylenol to kick in.

I have to pull it together, tomorrow. Tomorrow is the kids’ Christmas pageant, a Big Deal because their school has a new music teacher who apparently had to go way over the top to make a good first impression. What has traditionally been a fun evening in the school gym, with some Christmas carols organized around a theme, a little light choreography for the upper grades, and a decided lack of pageantry or nonsense is now a production on a rented stage. My children are as stressed about this pageant as I was while studying for the GRE. And they are four. I am pretty sure they feel like their whole academic future is riding on this performance.

I can rally, for this, the premier event of our Xmas season. I bought them the requested holiday dresses and hats, helped them learn the songs they are singing, soothed anxieties, listen to whispered fears about the big stage, forgetting lines, and having an audience. I can toss some BB cream on my bright red face, put a decent attitude in place for a few hours, clap loudly, hold my tongue about the ridiculousness of this production, be pleasant. Wish me luck.